Happy November, RIT Athletics Community! I hope this message finds you all well as we close out our fall athletic season and head directly into winter sports seasons. Congratulations to all Fall student-athletes/coaches/teams on your successes. A shout out to our Women’s Soccer team as well as Amelia Gilbert and Derick Koen and their success at the NCAA DIII Championships. Also, congratulations are in order to Head Men’s Basketball Coach, Bob McVean for earning his 600th win.
My name is Dave Bagley and I serve as the Assistant Vice-President of Student Affairs & Director of Residence Life. In my administrative role, I provide overall leadership for the Center for Residence Life, including responsibility for supervision of a large professional and paraprofessional staff (Resident Advisors) supporting over 6,500 students that reside in RIT Housing. Our expectations as a major center are to deliver a comprehensive residential experience focused around our core values of student success, well-being, collaboration, inclusion and community engagement to all of our residential students. In this role, I also serve as one of the Sr. Vice President of Student Affair’s representatives on the University’s Critical Incident Management Team and the divisional representative for summer term conference and program development, especially focused on residential and dining supported events/camps.
Many of you are aware student-athletes, mainly first-year athletes, reside in RIT housing. We hope this experience allows them to thrive in all areas of their lives. Our team is here 24/7 to support all students that reside in RIT housing.
Additionally, my wife, Elaine, and I are proud parents of a fourth-year School of Communication member. Our son, John, is also a member of RIT’s baseball team. Last spring, Elaine and I had the privilege of serving as parent/family representatives for Head Coach Rob Grow and look forward to serving in this capacity again in the spring. This entire experience has blended my professional and personal worlds in ways that I will forever cherish. The relationships that have been established and the life lessons we've all experienced are beyond anything we could have imagined when we started this journey almost four years ago.
I have been in higher education/student affairs for my entire 27 year career, mainly working with resident advisors, orientation leaders, peer mentors, and student government members. In this journey, I have witnessed RIT student athletes exhibit incredible leadership skills and strong character during moments of success and adversity, which was a reminder of the similarities our student athletes have with other leaders on campus.
Elaine and I believe that sports provide valuable life lessons around leadership, teamwork, failure/adversity and working towards a common goal. Winning is important, but it is not the only metric for success. It was incredibly hard when the baseball team lost the Liberty League championship game last spring, but I believe they will be better down the road for going through the experience and are in a better position to get back to the Championship game this upcoming season. Seeing how motivated the team was this fall shows how driven and prepared they are to return to the championship game. As an educator, coach, administrator, or parent what else can you ask for regarding a college experience? Your student athlete takes a moment of adversity and builds on it, works harder and does everything in their power to position themselves for future success. This is the true essence of student learning, student development and overall student success.
I would like to thank Jackie Nicholson and Jeff Siegel for asking me to contribute to November's Tigers Athletics Report. I am truly humbled and honored to share some thoughts and perspectives from my experience and remain incredibly proud to be part of this very special community.
Happy Thanksgiving and Go Tigers!
